Sunday, June 26, 2005

I've been reading around the blogosphere this morning
quite a bit of advice that the Democrats should ignore Rove's
comments. That by responding we are "playing into his hands" and
"doing exactly what he wants us to do." ...

Dukakis didn't respond. Gore didn't respond. Clinton did respond,
(although I suspect that the real reason it didn't work as well with
him was because his womanizing problems made it difficult to subtly
label him unmanly.) They just spent a hundred million dollars calling
Kerry a "flip-flopper" which in case you didn't get it, was designed
to make you think of a flaccid penis. These guys aren't very subtle.

The truth is that to ignore this stuff it is to play into Rove's
hands. Because the whole point is to make us look weak. When you don't
respond when people call you weak, you reinforce the charge.

For crying out loud, here's how to do it. The Poles were somewhat
startled to become an issue in recent French politics, where talk
about their economic maliase has somehow become dominated by the
phantom threat of the Polish Plumber. How does the Polish tourism
bureau respond? In your face. A buff Polish plumber can now be seen on
billboards all over France, touting the virtues of his home country,
and inviting the French to see for themselves: "I'm staying. And you
should come."

Can't the Democrats, would-be leaders of the greatest country on
the planet, do at least as well?

If someone really did want to get U.S. troops killed, or if you didn't particularly care one way or the other, you would start by getting us involved in an unnecessary war that diverted us from our real purpose. Then you would ignore the advice of military officers and force our troops to fight that war with insufficient manpower and equipment, under incompetent civilian leadership that paid little or no attention to the aftermath. That way, you could ensure that withdrawal from that war would become impossible and that it would slog on month after bloody month.

Of course, nobody would ever be foolish enough to start such a war. But if they did, you could probably get at least 1,700 Americans killed, don't you think?

Now, is that analysis brutal, harsh and unfair? Yup. But it's no more harsh than Rove's crass attempt at bullying, and it has the added virtue of being accurate.

Because when you're savagely attacked out of the blue, you don't offer your attackers therapy. You fight back hard.